The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) recommends making a clear distinction between confidentiality rules under Norwegian national law and confidentiality rules under data protection law in order to avoid any possible confusion, in his opinion, published on Wednesday 13 December, on the revision of the EU/Norway tax agreement.
The EDPS issued this opinion following the European Commission’s proposal to amend the agreement between the EU and Norway on administrative cooperation, combating fraud and the recovery of claims in the field of value added tax (VAT), published on Friday 24 November 2023.
The EDPS welcomes the fact that the agreement updates the reference to applicable data protection law by referring to the provisions of the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement equivalent to the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’). The EDPS notes that the agreement would allow Member States to restrict the scope of the obligations and rights laid down in the provisions of the EEA Agreement.
Lastly, it recommends clearly indicating in what circumstances and under which conditions a restriction on the rights of data subjects may be adopted in order to ensure that the restriction remains limited to what is strictly necessary.
Read the EDPS opinion: https://aeur.eu/f/a62 (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)